Weather Effects Walruses?

Anna Dye
October 12, 2009
Physics
Science in the News: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/on-walruses-and-warming/

Weather Effects Walruses?
As the whole world freaks out about global warming and what it is doing to the penguins and Indian tribes of the arctic, no one lends a thought to the Pacific Walrus. As the ice caps melt on the water, the walruses, along with polar bears and other arctic creatures, crowd together on the small pieces of land. While, it is obviously not good for the walruses to be on the land to start with, the huge crowds make the land a tight squeeze. When all the walruses are packed into such a small space, entering the water to hunt can be extremely hard for them. What commonly happens is that once one walrus makes its way to the water, another follows, then another, then another, and next thing you know there is a huge stampede of walruses rolling down the side of a hill.
The ice caps melting has been a huge debate ever since Al Gore released “An Inconvient Truth.” Some people blame it on people and work to reduce their carbon footprint, while others claim it is just a flux in the weather and the earth will figure it out on its own. One of the biggest problems with the walrus stampedes is the death toll. Too many walruses cannot make it into the water fast enough on the land and are crushed under the weight of the other walruses. The Pacific Walrus was just recently relieved from major hunting pressures and there are not as many of them alive as there should be. The extinction or endangerment of the Pacific Walrus would be horrible for the world’s ecosystem, as is the extinction of any other species.

At first I was quite amused by this article. It seemed like a slightly ridiculous article until I read it. It is actually a very important issue relating to climate change that I had never thought of before. It made me realize that more than just the polar bears are affected by this issue and that many other species could be affected.